


The Siren's Call

by Nibelung



Category: Original Work
Genre: 1930s, Blood and Violence, Crime Fighting, Dismemberment, Gen, Gun Violence, Mutilation, Pulp, Pulp Magazines, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-08 18:50:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20840318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nibelung/pseuds/Nibelung
Summary: Excerpts from a pulp magazine from an alternate universe. She dishes out two-fisted, red-handed vigilante justice with an aftertaste of lipstick. The Shadow, the Spider, the Phantom, Miss Fury…. meet the Siren.





	1. black as the hearts of men

Every night, Rita Malone gets dressed to kill.

This is the fulfillment of a dream she’s had for years: ever since her father, the crusading attorney of well-to-do old-money stock, left the family brownstone to buy his little daughter an ice cream cone, and was shot dead by a mugger as he re-mounted the steps to his front door.

Watching from the window in eager anticipation of his return, she’d seen the whole grisly tableau play out in silent horror. When the fatal shot went off, heedless of her own safety, she ran into the hall, tore open the front door, and with a wild guttural cry charged down the steps at her father’s murderer.

The perpetrator, fearing her shouts would draw unwanted attention to his crime, shot her in the shoulder, then fled into the night with his stolen cash. Leaving her, wounded and in pain, to cry over the fallen body of her father, the ice cream cone still clutched in one cooling hand.

The police went on the hunt for the killer of Edward Malone, and found him a month later: dead in an apartment, the victim of an apparent overdose. Not at all the sort of poetic vengeance she’d let herself begin to dream of dishing out.

Her mother was already dead, so the task of raising her was divided between her older brother Reuben, who inherited the family law practice, and their faithful butler Wentworth. But something wild and angry, something that cried out for blood, lodged in her soul that night and refused to leave.

She dropped out of college; instead she used her family’s fortune to travel the world, looking for the best tutors in deduction, self-defense, even the more esoteric psychic arts.

All so she could come home and do what she’s doing now.

With Wentworth’s help, as she does every night, Rita steps into her crook-hunting attire. Or, as she prefers to think of it, her armor of battle.

First: a simple shirt, black trousers, black boots.

Then: the leather jacket and gloves. Black, like the rest.

Next: her utility belt.

On it are a grappling hook; throwing stars; smoke bombs; flash bombs; other equipment pouches as necessary; and holsters for two guns.

One shoots fast-acting tranquilizer darts: a reward for suspects who play nice. The other, hot lead, for those who don’t.

Then a cape. Black, naturally.

And finally, her mask.

Tight black leather that covers most of her head and fastens at the back of the neck. It has holes for her eyes and mouth, but the rest of her face is shrouded in its dark embrace.

A missing ear, an absent nose, a scalp bald from the kiss of fire: the leather hides all these things, far better than the night hides the criminals of Sable City from the Siren’s justice.

Oh, one more thing.

Got to remember the glass eye.

A piercing blue-gray to match its mate, the one eye in her head not milky-blind and shrunken with disuse.

Because even a mask can’t cover everything. And it wouldn’t do to let her prey notice her weak spots, after all.


	2. beneath the shining armor

“You, Reuben?” she asked, dumbfounded. “You had Daddy killed?”

“An unfortunate necessity,” her brother replied. “He’d discovered that I was taking bribes to pay off judges, make witnesses disappear, that sort of thing. All for the good of the family firm, of course. But he was too strait-laced to realize that that sort of back-scratching is what gets you to City Hall. He was going to fire me from the practice. Ruin my career. And I couldn’t have that.”

“So you put out a hit….”

“With orders to make it look like a mugging gone wrong. And I made sure the killer was taken care of himself afterwards, of course,” he said, swirling the liquor in his glass. “Oh, the papers ate it up! The lurid spectacle of the city’s premier defense attorney gunned down by a common criminal on the steps of his own home – not to mention the photos of his wounded baby daughter sobbing over his corpse. It was like manna from journalist heaven. And it made them my willing allies as I went from private practice, to District Attorney, and now Mayor. Sable City’s Shining Knight takes the throne at last.”

“Well, _Your Honor_,” Rita said, taking down a sword mounted on the paneled wall, “it’s a little early to be celebrating. I don’t think you’ve counted all the votes yet.”

“Is that how we’re going to play it, then?” Setting down his glass, Reuben took hold of the other sword. “A recount ballot? Because when it comes to buying votes, sister, I’m the best there is. Look in my briefcase there if you want to see the proof – if you weren’t about to start a duel you’re certainly going to lose, that is.”

“Lose? Maybe. Maybe not. But in that case at least I’ll go down fighting.” Rita tried a few practice swings; it was a fairly standard saber, not too difficult to handle. “Beneath that shining armor, you’re the worst monster in this city. And I’ll do whatever it takes to put you down.” She pointed the sword toward her brother, who likewise had been readying for combat. “En garde!”

As their duel began, and the sounds of clanging sabers echoed off the wood-paneled walls, Rita reflected on why this had been a foolhardy decision.

First: fencing in the cramped space of the library of Malone House was a difficult proposition.

Second: Reuben was always better than Rita at fencing. He was right about that.

Third: as she was just now learning, Reuben didn’t play fair.

So the battle didn’t last too long before Reuben grabbed her sword arm with his free hand, and used his powerful grip to press down on her forearm until there was a _snap_ and Rita dropped the blade, her broken arm throbbing in agony.

Another blow from his left hand, this one a vicious chop to her neck, sent Rita crashing on her knees to the carpet.

“How disappointing. I thought it would take longer,” Reuben said. “Still, that’s not so bad. At least I’ll have plenty of time to pick out a Bible for my inauguration tomorrow.” He gestured to the bookshelves framing the room, letting his eyes sweep over the leather-bound volumes behind glass doors.

Meanwhile Rita’s eyes darted around the library, looking for a means to regain the initiative.

_The doorway? No, I couldn’t reach it in time. Same for the window._

_The fireplace? If I picked up a hot poker, he’d just bat it away with the sword._

_The piano? Now that might work. He doesn’t know it’s the key to my secret arsenal… or about the booby-trap I installed._

But before she could move, Reuben’s reverie ended and he resumed his focus on her. She’d have to bide her time.

“There are so many wonderful verses in the Good Book, you know,” her brother said, coming closer to her, a terrible leering smile plastered on his face. “So many pearls of wisdom that you could stand to learn from, dear sister. So many ineffable truths.

“Like in Genesis. ‘And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.’”

He raised the sword, still in his right hand, and quicker than Rita could move, Reuben brought it down in a flash of steel and cut off her nose.

Rita screamed and raised her arms, the whole one and the broken one, to clutch at the bleeding hole in her face. But Reuben wasn’t done.

He dropped the sword, crimson with her blood, and picked up the decanter from the sideboard. “Or the Last Supper. ‘And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood.’”

Removing the glass cork from the bottle, Reuben poured its contents over her head. She could feel the whiskey soaking into her hair; it dripped down the side of her face, stinging one of her eyes, running into the folds of one ear; it burned like fire where it touched the stump of her severed nose.

“But my favorite,” Reuben went on, putting the empty decanter back on the sideboard, “is this one. From Pentecost. ‘And there appeared unto them cloven tongues as of fire, and it sat upon each of them; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.’‘’

He picked up the hot poker from where it rested in the fireplace, with one end thrust amid the burning logs, and touched its glowing tip to her alcohol-sodden hair.

Rita’s world caught on fire.

She felt the flames ravaging her scalp; crisping hair fell away from her head, becoming ash as it went; the ear coated by alcohol burned and withered to nothingness; the eye into which the whiskey had dripped cooked like an egg at breakfast.

Agony, agony, agony. Her world shrank to a dim red circle, a bloody haze before her one seeing eye. Her throat was raw with screaming. Long before fire consumed the last of the liquor, she’d pissed her slacks in pain and terror.

And yet, when the alcohol finally burnt itself out, she was alive.

“Unfortunately, I have to cut this short. Got to dispose of your body in time to get a good night’s sleep for the morning. So, with a bang, here endeth the lesson.” He turned to the chair by the door where he’d left his briefcase, opened it up, and began rummaging around. Evidently there was a gun hidden among his private papers.

Slowly, painfully, with every inch of her body screaming out, Rita crawled over to the piano while Reuben’s back was to her. She lifted up her left arm, managed to grip the edge of the keyboard, pulled herself with an excruciating heave into a standing position.

_Now to bait the trap._

“You forgot a few verses, brother.”

Reuben’s head swiveled to look at her, but his arm was still rooting around in his briefcase. Secret compartments could be tricky sometimes.

“Like this one. Sermon on the Mount. ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’”

She played four notes at random on the keyboard, making sure to stand well to the side of the piano rather than in front of it.

Finally the compartment opened and Reuben’s hand closed around the gun. Hurriedly he strode towards Rita, to get in a better position to fire. But as he stepped in front of the piano –

_Rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat!_ Triggered by an incorrect sequence of notes, instead of the doorway to Rita’s secret room opening up, a machine gun hidden in a bust on the opposite wall poured forth a flurry of hot lead. Reuben Malone, mayor-elect of Sable City, was pocked through with holes in half a second. The gun tumbled from his nerveless fingers onto the bloody carpet.

Yet somehow, he remained on his feet, though bleeding from half-a-dozen bullet wounds. Punch-drunk – or rather, bullet-drunk – but still standing. Hardly even a cry of pain. He was a damn tough customer. Like all the Malones.

So, on shaky feet, Rita hobbled over to him as quickly as she could, grabbing his shoulder with her one good hand. Fortunately for her, Reuben was still too stunned to put up a fight.

“Here’s another good one,” she said. “First Corinthians. ‘For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face.’”

With all her might she whirled Reuben around and shoved him face-first into the glass of the nearest bookcase. This time he screamed. _Good,_ she thought. He writhed beneath her grip for a moment and then went still.

As her brother sagged against the bookcase, his bleeding face staining red the jagged glass and the leather-bound spines within, Rita turned to see where the gun had fallen on the floor. With a pained grunt, she bent to pick it up. “And last but not least, that old favorite. ’Ashes to ashes, dust to –‘”

But as she grabbed the gun with her left hand, there was a crash of breaking glass and a cry that died on the wind.

As she pulled herself erect again, using the sideboard for support, Rita surveyed the scene before her with her one good eye: a trail of blood leading to a broken window, and a figure on the ground below, staggering off into the snowy night, leaving bloody footprints behind him.

She sighed, a long, exhausted breath that mingled frustration at Reuben’s escape with sheer relief at having survived his wrath, however maimed. The papers in her brother’s briefcase would certainly spell the end of his mayoral career. But this might be just the beginning of a feud that could last for a long, long time.

She was glad there weren’t any mirrors in the library. She didn’t think she could handle looking at her new face yet. There’d be a monster staring back at her, like the monster that had lain hidden for so long in Reuben’s heart.

Collapsing into a padded armchair, she decided to drain Reuben’s half-empty whiskey glass before dialing for a doctor. She was covered in blood, hers and her brother’s, and her urine-soaked trousers clung to her crotch, but by this point she was far beyond caring about staining the leather chair.

First whiskey. Then an ambulance. Everything else could wait.

Rita picked up the glass, raised it, and paused before gulping it down.

Words unbidden came to her lips: “’How far art thou fallen, O Lucifer.’”


End file.
